The Face of an Angel (2015)

Really Surprised!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I like Michael Winterbottom. It's probably cheap to call this pretentious but it is about a filmmaker hanging around and sometimes sleeping with very beautiful women, writing a film about the Murder of the girl in the film, who has lots of interviews which producers and financiers in which he talks about what he's trying to say in the film and the structure of the film with is based on Dante's Inferno (one of Dante's books at least). I'll call it self reflexive I don't know but I'm gonna say it's about Michael Winterbottooms life and divorce (it can't be another film about Steve Coogans life). The film director (Bruhl) makes reference to him needing a hit after his last film flopped... I wondered which film that was (in real life), because I didn't think any of Winterbottoms films made money. I've always wondered how he got films funded. I like his films a lot, but I just thought it was like funding Derek Jarman, you're always gonna lose money but you'd feel good about it. Like you've done something worthwhile, but not as gay maybe. I mean I didn't think he felt pressure to make money.....I don't think this deserved to be as derided as it was. i was impressed with the accuracy to the real life case. The insanely dislikable daily mail columnist is Nick Pisa, who is insanely dislikable..The Police chief really reminded me of the actual chief and so did a lot of the cast. A lot of the seemingly small events are based on real events and are accurately portrayed. And despite me calling it pretentious I do like the self reflexive nature of this film. I think it worked and I enjoyed it more afterwards thinking about the three act structure (they talk about it in the movie) and its resolution and Cara being a sort or adopted daughter.This would be a great film to talk about over a meal, because it has depth and because it will so obviously polarise opinion, getting under some people's skin and feeling painfully obvious and other people clicking with it.I think with a semi autobiographical film like this, you're more likely to get away with a Woody Allen style approach (I.e. Comedy) and not be called pretentious and Winterbottom has done this before with 'The Trip' and 'A Cock and blah blah' and people found it easier to stomach. When you go later Woody Allen's serious stuff, you upset people. This is 'Interiors' but about a real life murder. So I can see it's pretty difficult for people to separate the art from the fact.I clicked though!

Kate Beckinsale easily has the face of an Angel (well Duh! She probably is one). But let's leave my biased view of Kate on the side, because this apparently is based on a real life case. Which I had not idea going into. And maybe it helped my viewing experience that I didn't. Because while I see all the negative reviews here (after watching the movie), I couldn't relate.There are many weird things in this and it may be too sexual for some, but I do think it brings its point home: Which is the current state of journalism. It's not so much about the actual story, but about how the media reacts to stuff like that. So if you go into this knowing that or at least being open minded, you might be entertained too

Barbie Latza Nadeau's novel based on a true event has been transformed (or mutated) into a screenplay by Paul Viragh and the result as directed by Michael Winterbottom is a fine scenic tour of Sienna, Italy – and little else.The story is based on true events - a journalist (Kate Beckinsale) and a filmmaker (Daniel Brühl) lose themselves in a notorious murder case they are covering – the controversial case of a American student accused of murder (the victim in truth, one Meredith Kercher) in Italy. Somehow the story gets lost in translation but if you can get past the fact that this is more of a fantasy film than reportage portions of can be entertaining. It does allow a primarily Italian cast to look great and decorate the already visually stunning sites of Sienna.

For all of you, who expected a big Hollywood-whodunnit-movie, don't see this one. This goes far deeper. Its not the story about a murder case, its the story about a guy trying to find a way of making a movie about it. The case split the world, there is no truth and thats the point. I found it very interesting to see a yellow-press murder case turned into an art-house movie. Brühls character knows he can only tell the truth (better: the truths) in fictional style and decides to tell it in a Dante-frame. How can you tell a story, that actually happened in a very fictional way? Mission accomplished. If you like murder cases AND Dante, go see it.